I Believe In Ghosts
I was living in an old house on the eastern shore of Maryland. I was living with my mother after a nasty split with my now ex-wife. It was a nice little place, quaint, sitting on a two acre lot out in the woods. It was, as I liked to say at the time, situated on the back-side of nowhere. And it was haunted.
We had cats in the house and every now and then they would focus their attention on a particular spot right over one of our shoulders or perhaps at a spot on the wall. That could be explained by typical cat eccentricity, of course. But that was just one thing.
There was a ghostly car that parked in our driveway. At any time of the day it might happen. There would be the clear sound of a car door slamming shut right outside. We'd jump up to see who had come to visit and there would be no one there. The dogs, after a time, stopped bothering to look. They could tell the difference between that slamming door and a real car out there.
We would occasionally hear music playing in the house. It wasn't anything that we would listen to. It sounded like ballroom music, with the clicks and pops that were standard fair on the old vinyl record. We were most certainly not fan of this type of music and we didn't own anything, even a movie, with such music playing. And yet, there it was, playing lightly in our home.
And then, one night around two in the morning I was talking to the woman who became the love of my life. She was living in Tennessee at the time. We hung up the phone and I started getting ready to go to bed. And then I heard it. Voices in the next room. They were muffled, like voices in another room often are, but clearly voices. I could even tell that they were females voices. Two women were right in the next room. I went to the door to see what the hell was going on and as soon as my hand touched the doorknob the voices went silent. I checked and there was no radio or TV turned on. My mother was sound asleep. There was no one else in the house. The voices came from no explainable source.
The house was haunted. Clearly. I have no doubt about that. But it was never a disturbance. There was never anything unpleasant or threatening about whoever was "living" in our house. I found myself talking to them on occasion but they never responded. They just went about their own business, ignoring me and my mother.
It was a great place to live, a great experience. My mother still lives there. The house is still haunted. And she, the dogs, cats, and other animals, are all happily coexisting with whatever other presences call the place home.
We had cats in the house and every now and then they would focus their attention on a particular spot right over one of our shoulders or perhaps at a spot on the wall. That could be explained by typical cat eccentricity, of course. But that was just one thing.
There was a ghostly car that parked in our driveway. At any time of the day it might happen. There would be the clear sound of a car door slamming shut right outside. We'd jump up to see who had come to visit and there would be no one there. The dogs, after a time, stopped bothering to look. They could tell the difference between that slamming door and a real car out there.
We would occasionally hear music playing in the house. It wasn't anything that we would listen to. It sounded like ballroom music, with the clicks and pops that were standard fair on the old vinyl record. We were most certainly not fan of this type of music and we didn't own anything, even a movie, with such music playing. And yet, there it was, playing lightly in our home.
And then, one night around two in the morning I was talking to the woman who became the love of my life. She was living in Tennessee at the time. We hung up the phone and I started getting ready to go to bed. And then I heard it. Voices in the next room. They were muffled, like voices in another room often are, but clearly voices. I could even tell that they were females voices. Two women were right in the next room. I went to the door to see what the hell was going on and as soon as my hand touched the doorknob the voices went silent. I checked and there was no radio or TV turned on. My mother was sound asleep. There was no one else in the house. The voices came from no explainable source.
The house was haunted. Clearly. I have no doubt about that. But it was never a disturbance. There was never anything unpleasant or threatening about whoever was "living" in our house. I found myself talking to them on occasion but they never responded. They just went about their own business, ignoring me and my mother.
It was a great place to live, a great experience. My mother still lives there. The house is still haunted. And she, the dogs, cats, and other animals, are all happily coexisting with whatever other presences call the place home.
51-55, M
